


Reminiscence

by strungoutinheavenshigh



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Smut, Gay Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, John Marston has more than one brain cell, M/M, Nostalgia, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read, Not Epilogue Compliant, Outdated Terminology, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Work In Progress, epilogue but make the the mood mesh with the end of the story, only moderately graphic sex, that is your warning, y'all have no idea how badly I wish I could write something besides Pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:22:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strungoutinheavenshigh/pseuds/strungoutinheavenshigh
Summary: Eight years after the implosion of the Van der Linde gang, John and Charles find each other drowning, thrashing against the grasp of ghosts who pull them ever deeper beneath the surface.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan & Charles Smith, John Marston & Arthur Morgan, John Marston/Charles Smith
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	1. Saint Denis

**Author's Note:**

> I. don't know how to write Charles' POV but here I go trying in the name of ExErCiSe. John is so much easier bc I also have one (1) braincell :/ plEase tell me if I butcher him so I can Not. I wanted John/Charles and started trying for something not agonizing and free wrote and got this. maybe next time.
> 
> PLEASE forgive me for using so much game dialogue in this chapter, I needed a starting point and I know it's lazy ugh. other chapters won't be so verbatim I promise

After seeing Rains Fall and his people across the northern border into Canada, Charles spent months traveling for lack of motivation to do much else. It was aimless wandering with his ear to the ground for any word about the remaining members of the gang. Despite knowing full well that Arthur was nearing his end last they spoke, the news of his death hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. There weren't many good folk left by the time the Van der Linde gang crumbled but Arthur had tried, and that had to mean something. He only heard what happened because couple of hired guns in Annesburg had a few drinks too many and talked a little bit too loudly. They laughed about Miss Grimshaw taking a bullet to the gut and bleeding out; they bragged about chasing Arthur and John up that mountain; they lauded Micah Bell as some kind of genius architect of destruction. He didn't, couldn't, stay and listen long enough to hear who was left. Hiking back up to Beaver Hollow dredged up flashbacks to the Murphree Brood's senseless terrorism, Dutch's plummet off the deep end, Arthur's stubborn cough. It ached.

He buried Miss Grimshaw first and wondered if the woman had anyone in the camp who stopped to consider the toll on her. The regret for not taking the time to get to know her sat heavy in his chest. She was one of the support beams that held up the entire gang. Through her barked orders and incessant nagging, she made camps into homes, ensured that every man and woman could care for themselves, and upheld order. It was thankless work but she did it for decades. He knew that she had been in Dutch and Hosea's company even before Arthur. She gave her life to Dutch and lost it for standing up against him in a stunning moment of bravery. Charles buried her in a meadow to the east of Van Horn.

Finding Arthur tucked into the mountainside of Roanoke Ridge was somehow even worse. He was little more than a husk of the man he'd once been, pale and thin and silent. Charles carried him down the mountain on his shoulders, the weight of death threatening to crush him. Swallowing emotion, he rode toward the Wapiti reservation until he came to a peak that overlooked the rolling hills and snow-topped peaks of Ambarino. It was a location that fulfilled his promise to bury him up on a cliff, overlooking the evening sun. As he carved out a simple engraving on a wooden cross, he thought that no headstone to truly do justice to the dead. A few words could never capture the highs and lows of Arthur's life, the violence and kindness and mayhem and charity that made up his journey in the world. How is one to capture the memory of a man who both murdered so many in cold blood and gave his life trying to save so many others?

> ARTHUR MORGAN
> 
> BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER
> 
> AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Grief sent him ambling south, looking for something and nothing at all. Years piled up without his life angling in any real direction. The hole in his chest pushed him into the fighting rings of Saint Denis. Fights to knockout, retirement, or death. Damn near anything goes. Charles often wondered how he kept getting sucked back into the underground community, the money wasn't _that_ good and he wasn't one to indulge in violence for its own sake. There was something addicting about the escapism, though. No time to think about loss and tragedy and heartache while focused on fighting for your life. The world would narrow to himself and the man in front of him out of necessity, distraction would land him flat on his back with nowhere to hide and no way back up. He chased the thrum of adrenaline that followed a hit driving home and the shocking numbness of his body when it was all over. One of these days, he'd surely be lined up with someone more broken that he was. That was what it took to do well in the alleys of the city, a deep, existential brokenness: disregard for your own life but willingness to fight for it so win or lose, there was no room for disappointment. It simply didn't matter.

"Folks love a surprise but they hate a massacre," Evans declared and clapped a hand on his shoulder, startling him from his thoughts. "And you are a killer. We both know what you gotta do." Charles scowled down at the cash he had available to bet, wishing the man would leave him be. Evans had found his way to enough of his fights that he came to mistakenly think he knew him and began to buzz around with unsolicited advice. He figured it went without saying that killing a man was no way to make friends. After a brief pause, Evans made an odd sound, "I'm leaving now."

Charles watched him scurry to the growing ring of onlookers who always managed to sniff out impending violence. This one shouldn't be all that difficult, despite Evans' misplaced concern. He was set to fight "Simon of Wales", a big man who was all brawn and no brains, slow but strong. These types were his best matches, it wasn't often he was the more agile man in the ring and it was enormously helpful to have the advantage of speed. He could place a healthy bet on himself this time.

"He don't know the half of it," the voice of a dead man rasped behind him. His stomach dropped sharply. 

He hesitated, almost afraid to turn and see a stranger, to be mistaken. Whipping around, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "John? You're... You're..." Dead. Everyone said so. Fallen off the face of the earth in '99, gone with Arthur. Not dead? Eight years older with shaggy hair under Arthur's old hat and the beginnings of a beard, thinner than he remembered with dark circles under his eyes. 

"I'm alive," he shrugged. Charles almost went in for a hug but stopped himself, opting for a handshake and clapping his shoulder. A genuine laugh bubbled up through him for the first time in months. The relief that washed over him was stunning. "So are you." John's voice sounded distant but he smiled lopsidedly and nodded toward the crowd. "So's he."

A portly old man had ambled up to the crowd and Charles was shocked to find that he recognized him. "That's Uncle?" He'd hardly changed at all.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know," he answered, too honestly. "I'm alive."

John shifted his weight and raised a brow, unimpressed. Concern etched unfamiliar lines into his face. "Uncle thought you was in some kind of trouble," he glanced at the crowd then down at his exposed torso, probably cataloging the dried blood on his chest.

"Err, kind of. I don't know," he leaned forward and lowered his voice, as if everyone there didn't already know what was going on. John smelled like leather and tobacco. "I'm throwing fights for a few dollars."

"Throwing fights?" 

"Sure."

"And you like that?" Charles slumped at the recollection that John had an uncanny ability to read people, despite anything Abigail said on the matter. The man spent too much time watching and tagging along on odd jobs not to have a sense of who most of the gang members were underneath whatever façade they chose.

"Of course not."

John shook his head, "So?"

"So," he smiled despite himself and squeezed John's shoulder again. "Let me go place a bet. Come on." 

He put a stack of cash on the line for himself. The bookkeeper prattled on about odds and a challenger but he wasn't really listening. John smirked at the Lone Wolf moniker and Charles could only shrug before jogging into the ring; hearing John place a bet on him with blind confidence may have put a bit of pep in his step. The ringmaster went through his spiel with no attempt to veil his racist characterization of an 'Indian Hercules', savage, untameable, like some kind of beast. It took a concerted effort not to roll his eyes so he ducked his head and waited for the signal to begin. Simon proved to be just as lumbering and overconfident as he remembered, throwing all of his weight behind every swing and stumbling when they missed. The fight didn't take long. Charles took a hit to the jaw and one to the gut but was otherwise unscathed when the other man went down in a heap, out cold.

He shoved his way out of the crowd and their mixed bag of reactions. More than a few of them were ramping up into a rage. John followed him with a steady hand on his back. "Come on, Lone Wolf. We better get you the hell out of here." Pulling a tunic over his head broke the contact but Charles' skin tingled where John's hand had been. How long had it been since someone made a point of touching him without intending harm? 

"Lone Wolf," the bookkeeper called, practically bouncing with excitement. "Wow! Made my month, but you also made some fellers mighty unhappy." He pressed a stack of cash into his hands. 

"So it goes." 

John took his winnings and steered him out of the alley, glancing over his shoulder as the crowd worked itself into a tizzy. The hand over his spine seemed to burn through the fabric of his shirt. "I bought some land out near Blackwater," he said when they emerged into the street, still looking back like he expected to be followed. "My sense is that you'll need to lay low for a while. Come back with us." 

"But, John, I haven't seen you two in years," Charles' instinct was to argue. His gut shouted at him to take this chance, to cling to these ghosts from his past, but fear of repeated abandonment weighed heavy on him. 

John paused to look him in the eye, searching for something. "I know. I would've come looking but I heard you were dead."

"I heard the same of you." 

"There's a place for you," he continued, staring into his soul with burning, familiar intensity. "I'd, uh, like it if you came, at least until the dust settles here." 

Charles blinked at the candor of his words. Clearly, the younger man had done some growing up since they last saw each other. "Okay," he conceded and failed to bite down on smile when John lit up. "I need to get my bags, they're at the dock."

"You boys go on ahead," Uncle suddenly piped up, stealing their attention. "I'll meet you at the bridge." 

John's eyes narrowed. "Where are you going?"

"I just got some errands to run!" 

"You're useless, old man," John scowled but didn't stop him. In another startling show of relative maturity, he turned and started down the street without making a scene. 

Uncle sputtered some defense of himself but neither of them were listening. "Some things never change, hm?" Charles ribbed as they walked. 

"He's like a roach, not good for nothin' and impossible to get rid of. Terminal lumbago, my ass." He dragged a hand over his face and sighed, dark eyes flitting to side streets and alleys. They walked quietly and quickly, John kept his head down and his hat low to hide his face. 

"Careful," Charles spoke softly as they approached the dock. "Those are Guido Martelli's men. He used to work for Bronté." The suits watched them pass, making minimal effort to hide their gaze. 

John shook his head but didn't look back. "I've only been here an hour," he muttered, sounding thoroughly exasperated. Charles couldn't help but wonder just how much Dutch's legacy haunted him. 

"Hey!" one of the men beckoned. They turned to see the four of them lined up with matching cocky expressions. "Come on over here." 

"You go left, I'll go right." Charles only had time to nod before gunshots rang out and they rolled in opposite directions to get behind cover. Martelli's men were not very good shots but it had been some time since he was in a firefight, he was out of practice. A few of his shots went wide but he downed two them without much trouble. John was apparently not similarly out of practice, he fired two shots and both bullets were buried in the men's skulls. Charles made a mental note to ask what exactly he'd been doing for the last several years when the opportunity presented itself.

He grabbed his bag and ran for a cart that had been left on the street. Charles took they reigns and steered them through the cobbled streets as quickly as he could without drawing attention. As they rode west into New Hanover, darkness fell and the temperature dropped. John broke the silence for the first time to ask for the reigns so he could rest. It would be a two-day ride from Saint Denis to the outskirts of Blackwater. Tiredness had settled into his bones and he'd been close to falling asleep after all of the excitement of the day so when he woke with the sunrise and John was still up, he knew that the younger man had to be similarly exhausted. He shrugged off the concern though, all the way up until they reached the entrance to the ranch. 

"It ain't much to look at just yet," he warned around a yawn. "I don't rightly know what Abigail saw in the place, 'sides that it could be hers. Err. _Ours_ , I guess. Maybe I'm a fool for diving into land ownership blind but I don't got the fight in me these days." 

Uncle guffawed loudly and spurred his horse forward so he could interject. "That is an understatement if I ever heard one. John's fixing to be a rock farmer for all this land is worth, living in a shack with no wife, no child, only his debt to keep him warm at night!" 

"Shut up, Uncle," John groaned. Charles shared the sentiment but seeing the house silenced his agreement. It looked ready to blow over with the next gust of wind. 

"You weren't lying," he granted as he slid off the cart. "This is no place for a woman and child, John."

"I bought one of them pre-cut houses in town before we came to Saint Denis," he said, a touch defensive. "Parts should be here in the next day or so. I'd appreciate a hand getting everything assembled since one of us can't be bothered to get off his ass except to eat and bitch." The glared he fixed on Uncle would've made a less experienced man wither but the old coot just waved it off. 

"I got lumbago!" he explained as if any of them really bought the excuse. 

Charles squeezed John's shoulder and felt him sway on his feet. "Of course I'll help. You're inviting me into your home, the least I can do is contribute." John sagged under his hand with what could only be relief. He couldn't see his face through the curtain of his hair but could imagine a pained expression marring his features. "You should sleep, it was a long ride. Uncle and I can go into town and pick up the house." 

John shook his head and took his hand off to drag fingers through his hair. "Nah, the sooner we start, the sooner it's done." 

"Are you doing okay, John?" 

Tired eyes met his own. "Sure, Charles."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm tentatively shooting for like four chapters, the next couple will probably be a little meatier. let me know what y'all think! this is a rarepair that I've been interested in for a while but too much of a coward to try to write


	2. Beecher's Hope, Fireside

It turned out that even pre-cut houses take a good deal of manual labor to get constructed. Charles supposed that innovation could only make life easier to an extent, it wasn't like the house would build itself. Granted, the work was more time-consuming than it was difficult, lots of hammering nails and erecting walls. He had to admit that the actual written plans were convoluted, which meant in some sense that Uncle was being genuinely helpful. It wasn't something he would even consider acknowledging though, since the old coot rubbed it in incessantly. The back and forth bickering between John and Uncle had gotten on his nerves in the beginning but after several weeks, he could tune most of it out. Fortunately, most of it wasn't aimed directly at him, which helped. It became like a prattling background noise as they worked and he had a suspicion that they only argued as much as they did out of habit. Uncle would occasionally drop a biting comment that crossed some line or other and those were the days when John would go silent. There was one tirade early on, before they'd torn the old shack down:

_"What did I tell you, Charles? Boy is as sour as old milk. No wonder she didn't stay with you. Not even a retired two-dollar whore would stay with you, that's the goddamn truth. You used to be decent company but now you're worse than a snake with a toothache. All you do is whine, whine, whine, and don't get all angry now, it won't change nothing. You're hopeless, and I mean that literally. You got no hope. Look at you. Look at this place. Your dream home. I've had better nightmares than this dream. Get some goddamn self-respect."_

Charles had expected some blowout fight but was well and truly shocked when John get absorbed it all with a glare and simply refusing to speak to the old man for the rest of the day. It was effective enough, he supposed, since Uncle backed off a touch with the verbal abuse.

They threw themselves into the construction of the house when all of the parts finally arrived. He found it to be an outlet to let out the energy that made him restless, the same that had pushed him into fighting when he couldn't find a purpose. They worked through the light hours, cooked over a campfire in front of the house, and slept under the the stars. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but Charles realized quickly that he had missed the quiet of the country. His back complained about sleeping on the ground but the air on his face as he drifted off each night felt like freedom. Their little routine became familiar: rising with the sun to try to get ahead of the heat, moving planks and hammering nails, trying not to compromise the structural integrity of the house. Some days flew by with dripping sweat and aching muscles while others oozed along like molasses. If they'd run out of food, he and John would go hunt for their dinner while the sun set. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the younger man had improved dramatically at silencing his steps, taking him hunting back in the day had usually guaranteed that nothing would be caught. Uncle burnt the meat over a campfire and they shared stories during the meal. Exhaustion sent them to sleep early to repeat it all the next day.

For better or worse, off days were few and far between. John seemed adamant to work himself into the ground until both Charles and Uncle ganged up on him, insisting on at least a couple days off per week. It made something in Charles' chest ache to watch because he knew that feeling, like stopping for just a moment would give too much time to think and thinking would only bring pain. That was something else that had changed with the years, he used to ramble on about nothing in particular to distract himself and the others from the chaos destabilizing everything they knew. That constant chatter had fizzled into weighted silence and dry comments until his temper flared or he found himself at the bottom of a bottle. Charles never considered John to be an introspective type on any level, but he figured he hadn't really known him at all. The man he saw now had a familiar stubborn streak a mile wide and a quick temper, but he was also thoughtful, strangely insightful, and hard-working. On its surface, the changes looked like little more than the maturity that comes with eight years more experience in the world and the transition from his 20s to his 30s. What concerned Charles was the haunted look in his eye, the nightmares that interrupted his sleep, and the weight-loss.

"I got something on my face, Charles?" John's voice jolted him from his thoughts. He blinked up at the man perched on the half-shingled roof and realized he'd been staring.

"No more than the usual," he shot back before hoisting himself up as well. This was the last step before the house was finished and looking back, he realized that the time had gone in a flash. "Need a hand?"

John shrugged noncommittally. "I think I've got it, should be able to finish by tonight." The expected excitement was absent from his tone. 

"We can send Uncle into town for drinks," he offered, chuckling at the skeptical look John turned on him. "It warrants celebration, doesn't it? You almost have a home!" 

So when day turned to evening, Charles sent Uncle out. John was wrapping up, true to his estimate, as Charles struck a match to start a fire. He definitely didn't keep a keen eye on the hard lines and flexing muscle of John's bare back while he hammered the last few shingles into place, or to the faint outline of his ribs when he stretched, or the patterns of scars across his skin. Certainly not. Over the weeks they spent together and as he got to know who John was behind his old reputation as one to pick fights and stick his foot in his mouth, he'd developed a healthy appreciation for who he was as a person and as a friend. He mused about what it meant to live a good life or be a good man, what it meant to _try_ to be better, how to create something positive for those you care about. He joked with casual self-deprecation that revealed a very real, potent fear of being known, a compulsion to keep others at arm's length. Underneath thinly veiled insecurity was quick wit and a wicked sense of humor, a contagious laugh, a startling ability to read folk. Charles carried on denying the simmering attraction he felt, attributing it to circumstance even as he consciously forced himself to look away from his silhouette and pondered the ways he'd changed.

Lost in his head and mostly on autopilot, he set up to start a fire and start cooking some meat. With Uncle in town instead of on dinner duty, they could have un-burnt food for a change. Glancing up from the fire, he saw that John had gone down to the river to clean up and was on the way back with wet hair pulled back from his face in a low bun and a fresh white shirt on his back. A vibrant sunset erupted on the horizon, sending pinks and oranges and golds across the sky behind the house. It was done. 

"And just like that," John voiced the thought they'd both had and dropped to the ground across the fire. "She's done."

"A job well done," Charles granted with a wide smile. It truly was an accomplishment to be proud of and he felt the giddy flip of accomplishment in his stomach. John met his eye and graced him with a toothy smile in return that definitely didn't make his stomach flip again. Of course not. 

"I guess you were right," he admitted, waving Uncle in as he approached. "A little celebration couldn't hurt." 

"I thought we would never get this place upright," Uncle called as he dismounted, nearly falling on his ass to John's undying amusement. "Shut up, John! I can't wait to sleep under a roof again. This heat has been upsetting my lumbago." 

John scoffed with incredulity clear on his face. "Seems like everything you do upsets your lumbago. Bring them drinks over here, 'less you forgot them in your advanced age." 

Uncle grumbled an argument but kept it quiet enough that John wouldn't hear, which Charles figured was wise. He pulled a bottle of whiskey from his bag and took a long swig before passing it to him. It burned the whole way down. Charles started cooking what was left of the deer they'd been working ago and the smell of simple seasoning rose in the air. They ate with idle chatter and passed the bottle around until was suddenly empty and Uncle brandished another. Instead of taking a drink, he rose to unsteady feet. "I'm gonna take this," he declared and scooped up his bedroll. "And I'm gonna sleep in there. Don't wake me at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow!" 

"It's kind of incredible that he just don't change," John mused and took a long drink from the new bottle as Uncle waddled toward the house. "He's been this stubborn and useless since the day I met him." 

"He did help a little bit with the house," he admitted, much to John's obvious chagrin. "I'd never tell him that though. How long have you known him, anyway?" The question came unbidden through the warm buzz of alcohol and he worried for a moment that John would clam up. 

Instead, he furrowed his brow like he was struggling to remember. "I think I was seventeen when him and Pearson were brought in. Christ, that's half my life. Not sure when that happened," he grimaced into the bottle. "Sometimes I wonder how we all looked to you or Sadie, coming in so late in the game. Couldn't be flattering."

"I don't know, John. You all took me in when I didn't have anywhere else to go. Blackwater was jarring but I ignored the way things were falling apart for a while, same as everyone else," he was careful not to mention Dutch by name, opting to let John lead on that subject. "Toward the end, I was spending more time at the Wapiti Reservation than Beaver Hollow so I managed to steer clear of a lot of it."

John hummed and passed him the bottle, swaying slightly as he wrestled his legs underneath him. "I wish we'd done better by Rains Fall, or that I'd just done more. Arthur had the right of it, not getting all hung up on what fit the plan." He spat the last word like a curse.

"He struggled with it, too," Charles felt the need to take some of that unfair comparison away. "You know, busting you out of Sisika was probably the first time I saw him go directly against an order. He wanted to get you and your family safe and out of there. This?" he gestured vaguely. "This is what he wanted for you, all the way up to the end." 

An uncomfortable quiet settled for long enough that he wondered if he'd overextended, said too much, and silently cursed the fog in his brain. "I was up on that godforsaken mountain with him." Neither of them drew attention to the slight shake of John's voice. He cleared his throat and sighed before continuing, "He made me leave him, gave me all of his stuff and sent me back to Abigail. Maybe I could've gotten him out but he was _so_ sick. That guilt, though... it gnaws at you from inside. He deserved better than his lot in life." 

"He made the most of what he got, especially toward the end. When he finally told me he was sick, he'd made some peace with it," John trained a skeptical look on him. "Seriously. He did a lot of good for a lot of folks and knew what he wanted before he died. Your family got out, and most of the women, too. I'll tell you now, he wouldn't want you to stew in guilt over it all." 

"I reckon this was more his dream than mine. Don't seem fair that I got it instead. That whole idea that Abigail and Jack and I would settle down, go straight together, it just ain't how it is. That was for him."

"Couldn't it be?" A strange expression settled on John's face, accented by the flickering of the fire. "You've said it yourself, she'll come back for this." 

John finished the bottle and stared into the fire for a long moment, idly scratching at the scars on his cheek. "She'll come back for the ranch, the house, a stable place for Jack, all o' that. Normalcy. I think that's about all she ever wanted and Arthur always knew it. It ain't his fault he had us wrong, me and Abigail, I mean. Most everyone did. She's not coming here for me and I ain't asking her to." Charles tried to piece together the implication but John cleared his throat and continued, a floodgate having been opened. "We haven't been together like that in a long time, not since 'round the time she joined the gang. She had a rough go of it, trying to find her place. Everyone told her it weren't necessary to, err... Well, she was a working girl when we picked her up and she thought that was why we took her in. It ain't my story to tell but I was just a tick on the list. I tried to be good to her, be a friend at least. Then she got pregnant and decided I was the lucky man," he barked something between a laugh and a scoff. "It got her off the rounds, though. I promised her I would get her some stability someday and now here we are, right?" 

"Do you think she would take you back?" Charles asked and then reconsidered. "Do you want her back?" 

"I don't know. Probably not. It was never much about love for us, more just safety and familiarity. I kept Bill and Micah off her back and she kept Dutch and Hosea off mine." Charles tried not to let surprise show on his face and evidently failed, if John's huff of laughter was any indication. "Before she came along, Dutch caught me behind some saloon with a man. He was just... rage. Whooped me good for that. Said that we're outlaws because some laws need to be broken, to help people and for justice and whatnot, but that what I did was different. He hounded me for weeks and then he and Hosea started fighting. Arthur didn't know why but he knew it was my fault, told me to go fix it. Then Abigail came along and we got close and Dutch was happy." He shrugged like it didn't mean anything at all anymore, but the haunted look in his eye said otherwise. Charles had never known but thinking on it, he wasn't particularly surprised. Truthfully, it made more sense than him and Abigail actually being together.

"That's no way to treat a son," he said firmly, feeling oddly protective. "There's no helping whether you take to men or women or both or neither, he should have known better. He did wrong by you in a serious way, in Blackwater, Colter, when you were on Sisika, that train job in Annesburg, and those are only the times I was around for. Dutch had charisma so people took to him easy, and he was good at using that for his own gain. You saw it as well as I did after Hosea passed. He pulled me aside once at Beaver Hollow, when I'd been spending so much time at the Reservation, told me that _I_ was being selfish and neglecting the gang. There was all this fear in camp about a rat and I thought he was suspicious of me and that was terrifying. I did exactly what he wanted too, distanced myself from the tribe and started picking up slack in the camp. For a while, at least. There was this man who brought me in from the edge, invited me into his family... You feel indebted so you overlook the erratic behavior and convince yourself that he must be right, one more score, one more job, one more distraction, but it never ended."

"I did owe him. He pulled me off the gallows when I was a boy, saved my life. Him and Hosea taught me everything I know, reading, writing, shooting, stealing, all of it. Hell, maybe I still owe him." 

Charles heaved a sigh and stoked the fire, sending sparks bouncing into the air. "He saved your life and then put it at risk every single day. You stopped owing him for saving you when he left you to die. There's no sense in bringing a child into that life, anyway. I reckon you were a resource for him; he could love and care for you and still use you, John." 

"Maybe," he granted. "I met Arthur, though. Even back then, he must've spent most of his time saving my hide."

"He did that for all of us. You know how I ended up with the gang?" John met his eyes, dark brown shining with curiosity, and shook his head. "The folks I'd been running with ended up down south of Rhodes. We were in town, broad daylight, and someone clubbed me across the back of the head, knocked me out cold. I woke up in this shack, chained up. This feller must have thought it was still the '50s 'cause he was going on and on about returning me, screaming about how we should know better than to run away and that he had to punish me before sending me back. I was as good as dead from the moment he got his hands on me. He beat me within an inch of my life; it was just torture for its own sake. Sadistic. It must have been days, my memory's kinda hazy, but at some point he went out and just didn't come back. Next thing I knew, I was outside in a tent, sweating out a fever. Arthur killed the man, found his cabin, got me out, and brought me back with him." A chill that had nothing to do with the weather ran down his spine at the memory. 

John grimaced, scratching his jaw, then dug another bottle out of his bag and shifted around the fire until their knees nearly touched. He lowered his voice like he was telling a secret. "There was this feller back then, real creepy bastard, they connected him to a bunch of killings. He would string folk up and leave these messages," he shuddered visibly and took a swig from the bottle. Charles took one as well, relishing the burn and grateful for the ease od speaking that it brought. "Freaky. I, err, accidentally found his house; that's the damn luck I have. He had all these body parts in the basement and there was blood everywhere. I should've ran but I just froze, and of course he was there. So he brains me and ties me up and tells me all about the folk he's killed, how he's this misunderstood genius, a kinda artist or somethin'. I reckon I was only half there since he went and concussed me but I remember him cutting into me, carving like I was a piece of meat. Then goddamn Arthur busts in with a shotgun and saves my ass, again. I don't even know how he found me but he had a talent for it, being in the right place at the right time."

"You ever happen across the Aberdeen Pig Farm out in Lemonye?"

"Aw, Christ," John spat into the dirt. "You too?"

Charles paused. "John. Please don't tell me you took them up on whatever they offered," he bit his lip to hold back a laugh at the younger man's expense. A dark blush crept across John's face and down his neck; he refused to look up from the fire, suddenly fascinated by its glow. "Arthur told me that they gave him the creeps and to steer clear. I wasn't paying much attention when I was out hunting and ended up on their land, didn't go in, of course. They had this ditch a ways away with half-buried bodies in it. My point was that even if my gut hadn't steered me away, he'd given the warning and was right, taking care of folk. Did you go in?"

"I'd been riding for a long time!" he defended weakly, scowling at the flames like they had personally wronged him. "They was real strange. The wife propositioned me, I guess, and then they fed each other and talked about their parents. Like, _their_ parents. They were siblings. I was tired and uncomfortable as all hell so I took a drink."

"John."

"I know. They drugged me up and robbed me blind, I woke up in that ditch. It's probably a fuckin' miracle they didn't kill me. Went and took back my things, killed them both while I was at it. That wasn't the only time I ended up in a spot like that. Ain't never had any luck with strangers. There was this one hillbilly outside of Saint Denis," he shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut for a beat, shaking his head like it could rid him of the experience. "You don't even want to know. Killed him too, burned the house to the ground."

"Do you not have any survival instinct, John? You're way too trusting of folk."

John finally glared at him, still red in the face. The heat in his eyes made Charles' stomach flip. He took a drink to settle it. "I'm still alive, aren't I? One way or another. Somehow." Which was true enough.

"Arthur was a good at that, looking out for everyone," he shifted the subject before it turned too morbid. "I reckon half the gang would've been six feet under a long time ago if he weren't around." John's expression softened and he hummed in agreement. "You remind me of him sometimes." The expected scoff came on cue. "Used to be that temper, you both would go off over nothing back then. He was a sour son of a bitch sometimes but he cared. You both did, maybe too much. He'd be proud of you."

A few thick strands of dark hair fell from the tie at the nape of John's neck, partially obscuring his face. "I can't even keep the family he died to keep together, together. Ain't much here to be proud of."

"I think he knew enough about the world to know that folk don't choose their preferences, and that a family built on a lie ain't no family at all."

"You speakin' from experience, Charles?"

"Maybe." His face felt warm. The whiskey bottle in his hands was empty but he didn't know when that had happened. All those years ago, he told Arthur as ambiguously as he could about a man he'd all but courted once. It had blown up in his face about as spectacularly as his own relationship with Mary; folk always want you to change, leave the life, abandon your gang, all for them. He hadn't been able to cut those ties or make that commitment and eventually time ran out, the terms of his ultimatum weren't met, and that was that.

"I always wondered," John interrupted his thoughts softly. Charles looked up to see him fidgeting with a match, still hiding behind his hair. 

"Really? I thought I was pretty good at hiding it."

He shrugged and leaned back against a stump, adjusting his legs. His knee came to rest against Charles' thigh and he had to stop and wonder whether the heat under his collar was from the fire, the drink, or the man. Surely the fire. "It's little things, like not decking me for that," John looked purposefully down at the point of contact but didn't move his leg. His eyes tracked back up to his face slowly. "But it was smart to keep it under wraps. Dutch would've seen red if he knew there was two whole inverts in his camp." 

Sometimes Charles wondered if Dutch was aware that he brought in folk with baggage, if it was because he knew he could manipulate them or if he did it without thinking. There weren't many reasons to turn a twelve-year-old into an outlaw, or bring in working girls, or men running from debts. As much as he'd seemed to love folk who were different, maybe black and red _and_ queer would've been one too many vulnerabilities. "It's hard enough to get on when you look like I do without that being public. Safer, but lonelier." 

"Sure. Been a while, then?" John's words were a bit slurred but his gaze was sharp, attentive. Charles made a point not to squirm under it. 

"Yeah. There was a guy, a banker back before I joined the gang. It was good until I wasn't able to leave the life. He wanted me to go straight, go find a cabin in the woods and live off the land with him. I reckon that might sound familiar. After a while, he got tired of waiting and broke things off, found a woman and got married. Then out north of Annesburg, it was the damndest thing, I met this woman and she was the wife. Or widow, I guess. Charlotte Balfour. Small world. There have been a few back alley meet-ups over the years but nothin' like that since him." It still ached to think about, sometimes. There had been genuine love and caring behind all of Calvin's insisting that he abandon his gang, even if he didn't really understand why he couldn't. Charles had wondered before if that was his one chance at some kind of normal relationship and he'd blown it for a crew that ended up abandoning him in the end. Or if it had been them together in that cabin, whether maybe Cal would still be alive. He didn't have anything against Charlotte, she was a lovely, kind woman, but he still wondered. 

"I met her too, after everything went down," John spoke quietly but Charles felt his eyes go wide; small world indeed. "She's gettin' on pretty well up there, told me about someone teaching her to hunt and skin and shoot a long time ago. Said she couldn't have survived elsewise." 

Charles smiled at the brighter points of the memory, her awe at skinning rabbits and excitement at managing to shoot a bottle off her porch. Not the grave, though. "She was a quick study. I really am happy to hear that. What about you, then? Before Abigail?" 

John's face went pink again. "She really care what I did back when everyone was busy and everything was gettin' crazy. Weren't like we were really even together. There was a feller I met when we were at Horseshoe. I swear he was trying to get himself killed. Wildlife photography," he snorted at the expense of the entire profession and began rifling through his bag. "He was set up to get a picture of some wolves and I remember thinking that was about the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. So I stayed to keep him safe." He pulled out a photo a passed it over. If their fingers brushed then Charles certainly wasn't affected, no tension lingered in the air at all. It was a fairly good photo of some fairly angry looking wolves. "One thing led to another, you know how it goes. We would write sometimes and go for drinks if our paths crossed and I saved him from himself more than a few times. That ended when the gang split. Abigail thought it was high time I committed to the family she chose for me and I did for a while. Now, here we are." He slumped back against the stump with a distant expression, lost in thought.

Charles looked at the photo and tried to imagine the rest of the scene, an overly adventurous photographer and a probably exasperated John Marston stationed nearby. He flipped it over and was surprised to find a short note penned in neat handwriting.

_John,_

_I_ _must confess that I still feel quite the fool around you, fumbling through the great outdoors with no more than a camera and a dream. I look back on our first few meetings with much chagrin but it is inevitably overshadowed by gratitude, first that you were always around to save me from being eaten, and second that we were given the opportunity to know each other at all. It has been one of the great pleasures of the last few years of my life. Perhaps you can look at this photo someday and think of me and the time we shared, it may even be worth something, eventually._

_Al_

After a drawn-out silence, Charles handed back the photo. "It ain't easy, trying to be two people at once," he affirmed. "One person's running jobs for Dutch and robbing and killing while the other's fantasizing about a cabin in the woods or protecting photographers, and it all gets tangled up in your head." He felt a sudden and powerful wave of relief wash over him. It had been a long, long time since he knew anyone who understood that feeling of being torn in two. Arthur knew one dimension of it and that common experience alone had felt like a weight off his shoulders. "Did Arthur know?" 

"Nah, I didn't tell anyone. Abigail knew I was seeing someone but didn't care to know who, and I wasn't about to say."

A potent realization pushed through the fog of alcohol. "So, am I the only one you've told? About any of this?"

"Sure." John shrugged nonchalantly but wouldn't meet his eyes. Charles wondered if this conversation ever would've happened without drinks, or if they'd known each other better, whether it might have come up years ago. Would it have mattered? What did it mean now? What could it mean? He watched the younger man scratch the scruff on his face and straighten his back, popping his neck and wincing. He let his gaze linger on the line of his neck, the scars on his cheek, the curve of his mouth. When John finally looked up, dark eyes seemed to bore into his soul. They held his gaze, flicked to his lips and back up, and Charles felt his heartbeat speed up. 

He silently hoped that he wasn't just projecting or drunk enough to misconstrue what he thought was desire painted on his face. "John," his voice almost wavered, pitching low instead. Tension vibrated in the air between them.

"Yeah, Charles."

"Do you...?"

A small, huffed laugh. "Yeah, Charles." John scanned his face carefully and evidently found what he was looking for because he lurched over in an alcohol-addled motion, situating himself on Charles' thighs with a crooked smile. Nimble fingers traced the line of his jaw. "Do you?" 

He hummed and brought his hands to John's hips, squeezing gently before hoisting him closer. "Yeah, John," he admitted as he straightened to press their lips together. The smell and taste of whiskey and tobacco flooded his senses. His lips were soft, malleable, and he moaned responsively when Charles deepened the kiss, licking into his mouth. There had been times in the past when caving to desire was more a coping mechanism than a genuine pursuit of pleasure or connection, and the buzz of excitement would be muted by anticipation of regret. On the ground outside of the newly finished house, in front of the fire, under the stars, with John's fingers fumbling with his shirt, Charles felt the excitement in all its glory. John pulled back to glare at his shirt with an irritated noise and he laughed, feeling lighter than he had in months as he tugged the fabric over his head. The younger man made to effort to hide his gawking, biting his lip and sending a bolt of arousal south through Charles' body. He took the moment to push John's suspenders off his shoulders and unbutton his shirt to reveal defined, lean muscle and a litany of scars that rivaled his own.

Surging forward, he lowered John onto the bedroll on the ground nearby. His hair had come untied and splayed in a mess around his head. Charles leaned over him and kissed him deeply, savoring the taste before shifting to nip suck suck gently at his neck. It took a great deal of restraint not to leave a trail of bruises down tanned skin while John squeezed his shoulders and bucked his hips up, needy. He ignored the tightness of his pants and took his time mapping out the expanse of his chest with his lips, kissing scars from gunshots and rolling rosy nipples between his teeth, which drew delicious gasps from above. Leaning back up, his bit down on John's collarbone and pressed a palm to the hardness in his trousers. Something between a yelp and a moan rose from his throat and Charles kissed it quiet. "Don't go waking Uncle up, now." 

John glared but bit his lip against a similar sound when Charles squeezed him again. With a poorly concealed smirk, he moved back between the younger man's legs and tugged his pants down and off as smoothly as he could manage. The hardness of his cock bobbed against his stomach when it was freed. Charles' own cock twitched in his pants as he bent and licked a stripe up the underside of John's length, earning another low moan. He decided that Uncle was probably a heavy sleeper and instead of chastising him for the noise, he opted to wrap his lips around him and swipe his tongue across the tip before sinking down. John let out a strangled groan, evidently the vocal type, and tangled his fingers in Charles' hair, not pushing, just lightly digging nails into his scalp. Pressing his tongue up and hollowing his cheeks, he began bobbing his head, relishing the stretch of his jaw and the press against his gag reflex. Moans turned into a string of hushed curses as John's hips stuttered up from the ground. "Shit, Charles, I'm gonna- ngh- wait, fuck!" 

Charles pulled back with a _pop_ and settled on his heels to dig through his bag, still raking his eyes over John's form. His face and chest were flushed red and he was panting, muttering under his breath with his eyes screwed shut as he retreated from the brink of orgasm. "That's the idea," he agreed when he found the tin he'd been looking for. John propped himself up on an elbow and watched him unscrew the lid. Charles worried for a split second that he'd pushed too far or assumed too much but John smirked, dropped back down, and raised his knees, resting his head in the crook of his arm to watch. Shoving down the urge to lose his own pants and hurry things along, he slicked his fingers and began kneading the entrance to John's body. Pressing one finger slowly inside, he leaned up again and swallowed the moan that he'd known was coming, kissing him languidly as he started working him open. One finger became two, scissoring apart carefully, teasingly, until John was arching back onto the digits. Charles added one more finger for good measure, feeling around until he brushed the bundle of nerves that sent a jolt through John's body. Leaning his forehead against John's, he dragged the pads of his fingers over that spot until he caved and whimpered out, "God dammit, Charles, _please_." 

The strangled plea went straight to his cock. Charles withdrew his fingers and stood to discard his own pants, huffing a laugh when John's eyes went wide. He dropped back to his knees and slicked his length thoroughly before lining himself up. "You want this?" he teased, holding the base of his cock and pressing the tip gently against the ring of muscle. John jerked a nod then choked out a low whine when Charles began to push inside. Tight, velvety heat slowly engulfed his cock as he inched forward, taking care not to hurt the man beneath him. He leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth when he bottomed out, using every bit of his willpower not to pound into his pliant body.

John's legs shook and he scrambled for purchase on Charles' arms, eventually getting a grip on his shoulders. "Move," he rasped, his voice even huskier than usual. Charles didn't need to be told twice and began fucking into him with long, slow thrusts. He paid close attention to the moment when the tension in John's body and his half-pained grunts melted into desperate moans as he rocked back onto him. Neither of them were ever going to last long and they both knew it. Charles sped up his pace when John took his own hardness in hand and sent himself careening over the edge with a shout, coming across his stomach. A few hard thrusts into that vice-like heat sent Charles following him shortly after, muffling a moan in John's neck as he spilled inside him. 

They stayed like that for a minute, with Charles going soft inside John, slumped over him, both breathing heavily. Eventually, John rolled the bigger man off of him with a grunt and sighed at the mess left on him. He'd only half-formed a complaint when Charles poured water over a rag and wiped him down. "A true gentleman," he ribbed with a wide smile and reached for a pack of cigarettes. Charles laid back down and took the one he offered so he settled into his side, tucking himself under his arm.

Smoke swirled up into the air around them as they basked in the afterglow. Part of him expected to be struck by regret now that they'd done the deed and he was feeling less drunk, but Charles was pleasantly surprised by the light contentment in his chest. He wrapped his arm loosely around John's shoulders as they simply smoked in silence. 

"That was... real good," John sighed when he finished his cigarette, flicking the butt toward the fire and missing by at least a foot. "Can't say I actually expected you to be interested but damn," he drew the word out into two syllabus and shook his head. A small smile seemed to be practically stuck on his face, half hidden behind the mop of hair, and it made Charles' stomach flutter. Not the drink or the smoke or exhaustion or anything else, it was the absolute contentment and comfort radiating from the man that stirred the embarrassing, albeit affectionate, butterflies.

"Mhmm, you either."

John snorted. "Course I was, I ain't blind. Have you seen you?"

"Sure," he huffed at the compliment and tried to figure out how to formulate his question through the buzz of nicotine and the residual fog of alcohol. "How long have you seen me?"

Idle fingers threaded through the spattering of hair on his chest. "I dunno, Charles. I thought about it - this - back then but never had the balls to say anything. It would've been risky, anyway." His voice was quiet and the words ran together with the combination of half-drunkenness and exhaustion.

Charles thought on the way he'd felt since John came and scooped him from the streets of Saint Denis. There was a growing familiarity and kinship between them that hadn't existed when they were in the gang, but they hadn't had much time to get to know each other, either. He hadn't thought much of the man beyond mild irritation when he would get into fights with Arthur or Abigail, and maybe some pride when he would stand up against Micah. That had been all he knew of him, a short temper and impulsivity. He hadn't been able to see the fierce loyalty and work ethic and consideration that was on display without the chaos of the gang falling apart on his back. Even if he had been able to see John as a fully complicated person back then, it was true that the risk would've likely been too much. The timing would've been awful. This was better, he thought as tiredness began to weigh on him. John yawned against his chest. 

As much as he wanted to just fall to sleep where he was, the prospect of Uncle waking up first and finding them buck naked was plenty of motivation to pry John off of him and clean up the clothes that were strewn across the ground. He pulled his pants back on and threw John's at him, earning a sleepy grumble for his effort. Their shirts were draped over a log to wash in the morning and the fire was stomped out. Under the cover of darkness, Charles pulled his bedroll next to John's and let himself curl around his back with an arm around his waist. John was already asleep, but he shifted back against his chest in search of body heat and Charles smiled into his hair, inhaling the scent of leather and smoke and grass that clung to the strands. With the stars keeping watch overhead and the ache of loneliness abated, he fell asleep to the steady rhythm of John's breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was dialogue Heavy goddamn, another thing I struggle with lool. I had a few subjects I wanted them to hit on in this conversation (Dutch being a douche, Arthur's constant saving of everyone, John and Abigail not really being together anymore or like Ever, etc.) I just can't get my head around John/Abigail like can I just say that I was playing through the epilogue and my roommate was watching and he was constantly like "why does every interaction with Abigail have to be defused" "she is constantly berating him" "John pls have some self-respect"; I felt validated bc I also constantly think those things. but I digress. 
> 
> also this is obviously not a slow burn but I hope it doesn't feel too rushed. I also went an odd and unexpected direction with background for both of them with Cal and Albert but fuckit
> 
> my search history rlly be like "19th century slang for heterosexual" & "19th century LGBT terminology" & "popularity of [term x] early 20th century"
> 
> please bear in mind that this is un-beta'd and feel free to point out errors. let me know what y'all think so far <3


End file.
